Page 398 - Special Guest Villain

Author Notes:

After giving it some thought, I've decided not to plan for any special upcoming 400th page celebration. Partly because it kind of sneaked up on me, partly because as a result I'm a bit too busy to make something as involved as the 300th Video Comic, and partly because the Fallout is Dragons podcast (which just released its third episode, *hint hint*) is already everything I want for an evolution of the comic around this time. I hope no one's too disappointed, but I think I'm alright with just providing your regularly scheduled content.

Running *can* work as not everything is faster tan you. ;) For example, in a low-powered Super Hero adventure (Where were were B-list supers) the GM threw LOBO at us.

His strength score beats ours collectively by a factor of ten. He could kill each of us in just 1 punch (assuming average damage). However, he only had average speed and we were slightly faster than average.

If its the same speed or faster than you it could do that anyway, running away by itself is never possible so fighting in some way even if you only have a 1% chance of victory is preferable to running where you have a 0% chance of surviving. That being said Even if you have a 5foot move speed advantage that can be converted to a free no retaliation possible attack once every 6 rounds which in a no supernatural powers vs no supernatural powers battle can translate to a gauranteed no hp lost victory.

Why do you say running away is never possible? You could be fighting things that aren't as fast as you. Dwarves/Duergar, for example, aren't as fast as a party in which every member is a human or elf and wears light armor. Second, the enemies could have other motivations for not pursuing, or not pursuing beyond a certain point. Perhaps a creature of animal intelligence will let you go once you're a satisfactory distance away from its lair or young. Maybe a pack of ghouls is content to hang back and feast on one or two kills rather than chase after the rest of the party. Maybe an invading orc army would rather loot the village than pursue a few adventurers.

Also, the one free attack every 6 rounds depends upon a lot of things. You're basically presuming an infinite flat plain that you can string them along on forever. Second, it requires at least one party member to have a ranged attack with a decent attack bonus - and also enough ammunition to keep it up until the enemies are all defeated. Finally, it depends on the DM being willing to sit around and run a boring-ass combat instead of mixing it up with some interesting terrain or a secondary group of monsters attacking from behind.

My favorite example of outrunning someone was actually a player character in a 3D&D game.

Said player character had a polearm of Berserking. When held the character would become violently enraged, and attack the closest thing to them. As a way of making a cursed weapon useful, they dressed him in Full Plate Armor, would wind him up, and toss him at the bad guys. Then, they'd run away.

In Full Plate, a person's movement rate is only 10ft per round. The average person can move 30. So all we had to do was stay ahead of him, and he'd massacre the bad guys. Then when there were no more bad guys, we'd just stay ahead of him until he finally blew a save vs exhaustion and collapsed.

Ah, rebalanced monsters. Always important. I learned that lesson when I had to downgrade a clockwork golem mid-combat. Nothing says "don't play with him again" quite like a TPK in the first encounter of the first dungeon.

Still killed the escort, though. The one the party was supposed to keep from going into the dungeon in the first place. However, she mentioned treasure, and PC instincts took over.

In the process of choosing what age red dragon to throw at the 6th level party that'd hit 8 and gotten a load of magic items tailored to their strengths over the course of a 4-story custom dungeon, I wound up giving it class levels as a Sorcerer 2 levels higher than them. It went well.
I'm still proud of that dungeon. First I made, and they had a hell of time with it, yet nobody quite died, even when the Monk got subjected to Vargouille makeouts. Or when they charged into an ambush by Tucker's kobolds. Not to mention the trapped treasure room enchanted to seal and fill with fiendish scorpions if they touched ANYTHING. They reserved their stupidity for the taverns, thank Bahamut.

It is time.
You guys voted, and the final round is here.
She was banished because of her jealously to her sister 1000 years ago. She came back, and was purified by the Elements of Harmony.
She beat Sweetie Belle by one vote.
The Mistress of the Night
Luuuuuunaaaaaaa.
She was an outcast because of her difference, until Applebloom showed them the real side of her. She won against Discord by personal vote. She is the Shaman Zebra of the Everfree Forest.
Zeeeeecorrrrrraaaa.
Some people thinks she is a time traveler's partner. Others thinks she is a genius. But everyone knows, that she is a bubbly mailmare. She won her round by a landslide. She is Ponyville's own bubbly mailmare, and is also called Derpy.
Diiiiitzzzzy Doooooooooo.
Who is the Best of the Best?
You tell us, here and now.

Once more I have to vote for Derpy, for she is best pone.
Did anyone see her as a filly in the newest episode? How can anyone not vote for her after that? I melt every time I look at that adorable little face.

It seems that there should be no doubt
Of who will win this little ... competition
But though my one vote may be small
I must attempt to sway ... everypony
So though the wall-eyed mare holds sway
Another deserves to win the ... contest
So everypony hear my plight
And vote the princess ... Luna

So, is it a story about having to run from a monster? Or rebalancing them? Or both? Either way, this one seems kind of disappointing, but our DM had to down grade his evil master mind a few notches for us to beat him. It was about 5 on 1, and he was a Bard... Yeah.

I have had to rebalance a low level boss because he also nearly TPK the group.

It was a goblin in a suit of steam powered armor and he managed to beat a troll blood, ogre , human gunner with his own golem, and a winter elf archer with a wolf... I don't know if I should be proud of disappointed since technically the players not only out leveled the boss but actually had better gear also.

Expedition to Castle Ravenloft required a little rebalancing... in both directions. There was a demon encounter I toned down because it's DR/SR stats were just too good against the party, but on the other hoof I replaced a bunch of boring zombies in the basement with a homebrew creation that was essentially Wall Masters. Their AC and damage output was average, but the ability to phase through walls made them annoyingly difficult!

Speaking of hooves, I've been banned from throwing encounters consisting of a unicorn necromancer and pegasus druid. >_> It wasn't a TPK kind of combat, but the fight went on for 12 rounds with a lot of collateral damage to the throne room (and necromancer Twilight got away).

Personally, I thought that was perfectly balanced. I do love a long mini-boss fight.

First ever Rifts game I ran, a one-shot at a Chimeracon a number of years ago(I forget how long ago...) was a simple campaign, monsters and enemies straight from the book, players rolled up with all their starting gear and weapons. Halfway through, I rebalanced the enemies, not because they were too powerful (only a level or two higher than the players, standard setup) but because there was a dice muntiny going on! I have never seen that many ones in a long time. Luckily, the battle was in a canyon, so I was able to use the missed shots to do collatoral damage to the canyon walls and use the falling rocks to their advantage.

On a seperate note, due to the addtion of unicorn and pegasus robot horses to Rifts, I can run a mane six as humans in Rifts game now!! Each with her own matching robot horse!

I had one boss fight consisting of a fallen paladin, a lich, and a six-pack of kobold mooks against a 6-member PC party that was same level (14th) as the lich. The fallen paladin and lich were no problem.

The 6-pack of kobolds nearly killed the party wizard and rogue. Nothing like a firing off chain-lighting and rolling nothing but 1s for damage. :D

Well, Story time about balance extremes. This one is on the players. Basically, the Plot of the game is that each PC had in their past, gained ludicrous power and ascended to God-hood. In another realm.

Their archenemy's from each realm looked to other realms for ways to beat them, and happened to find each other, and a realm that was connected to all their respective realms, and would Drain the powers of anyone entering it. So they all Went there together, Built up a substantial power base there, and then summoned their enemy's to their new castle to enslave them. Cue dramatic escape by stealing a boat, working for another kingdom for a short time before becoming Lords of a small region and having to work to stop various threats in it.

Skip a few levels, generous treasure by me *I prefer a bit of a story focused game*, and realizing that our one cleric player is just an unconscious min-maxer, she does it naturally, and it was hard to balance fights to be challenging for her and the rest of the party.

What do I do? I buff the rest of the party and Throw her arch-enemy at them. After fighting their way through his personal Pocket realm, taking far too long to figure out a 'Put the key together then use it' puzzle because of a random waving cactus treant that ONLY waved, and we get to the boss Room. They were about level 12. Toza was a level 20 blackguard, having the full slew of benefits from converting from paladin, With 400 hp, Belt of Giants strength +6, The matching Con booster, a Ring of Protection +5, a ring of shooting stars, a Major Circlet of blasting, a cloak of resistance +4, Winged boots, a Gauntlet of Rust, and Three pieces of gear he had made, blessed by Hextor.

The Flail of Hextor, As I called it, was a +2 flail normally, but when held in the hands of one blessed by Hextor, or against a follower of Heironeous, it became +5, Unholy and Vicious, with Suggestion and +8 on all command undead attempts. If Both conditions were met, it became an Epic +8 weapon.

The SHield of Hextor was next, +5 heavy steel shield, with +3 Shield spikes, the Absorbing Shield Disintegrate ability, and the Floating enchantment.

The Armor of Hextor was probably the most fun part of it, +5 full plate, the Claws of Demon Mail, Spikes on it, It grants One extra attack at Full Base attack bonus, and the Claw attacks don't use up any Base attack bonus uses, Meaning it Gave 3 extra attacks at full BaB. The Fort save to resist the claws poison was also buffed to about 25, and it granted Greater Cold and Fire Resist.

And before you get any ideas of 'well, the Weapon sucks, but that shield and Armor are bitching, why would you give them a chance to loot those if they won?'. I thought of that, I let them loot, but each one gave one negative level for as long as they possesed it and didn't have Hextors favor, if they equipped them, it would increase to two negative levels each. If they used all three, TEN more negative levels. I actually had a quest line involved with them to remove that, Change the Flail to the Opposite rules on powering up, and make it Holt Axiomatic and boost turn attempts, but it required having all three equipped and having Heironeous or Pelor baptise them.

The fight against him was the first in a while where I felt satisfied I had challenged the party. The Level 12-ish party. They still won. I kind of ended that campaign after that because anything I came up with after would either pale in comparison, or just be way too extreme.

For rebalancing: level 3, against CR 1/2 swarms...it turns out that most of the party is useless against swarms. I eventually gave them a level mid-battle and they added things that could handle swarms...

The monster balancing in 3.5 and Pathfinder is *very bad*. The CRs bear almost no relation to the actual difficulty. So I'll have fights that are supposedly EL 15 that the 7th level party completely trashes, and then a CR 4 monster with some actual threat to it... still gets trashed but at least scares them first.

True, but that being said, it often depends on the party, too. A cleric, a bard, a rogue and a wizard at fourth level are going to have different strengths from four barbarians.

A golem would be a good challenge for the former, less so for the latter. An intelligent creature like a blue dragon, on the other hand, would be far more dangerous to the hack and slash group, but the first party may be able to talk their way out.

Thus, virtually every encounter has some way of lowering the practical CR, if you are prepared.

That is precisely why I tailor ecounters to parties, given time. Though I do keep a folder of universally appropriate sidequests and random encounters, with a disproportionate number of horror sidequests, many of them based in creepy Vocaloid songs...

Really? When I want creepy or horror, I crank up some death metal, binge on sugar, and stay awake for 72 hours while reading Lovecraft and whatever the hell I find searching for 'horror' or 'tortured' on gelbooru. (Warning: gelbooru is absolutely NSFW and NSFL. Do not search for either term unless you have a very strong stomach. In fact, try to avoid it. I use it for inspiration for some of my worst monsters. Be afraid. Be very afraid. And avoid the site at all costs. It will take your sanity.)

Nothing quite prepares you for a little girl on the side of the road, her clothes badly torn, and sporting cuts and scratches. When you stop to see if she's alright, she looks up at you with empty eye sockets, her lower lip has come loose, and is sewn in place with coarse wire. The sickening stench of death eminates from her mouth as she grabs you with unnaturally long, bony hands. "You gots pretty eyes, mister! Can I have them?"

Other things you should fear: cats, dogs, mushrooms, carp, badgers, unicorns, dragons, gnomes, mermaids, and gold coins in large numbers.

When I GM, I typically make encounters that the party just trashes. Since I generally focus on story more, I'm typically okay with that, 'cause it means I get to talk in funny voices some more. it doesn't help that I usually have at least one, sometimes more, munchkins, and that the Hero system is really easy to make devastating and cheap characters. Generally what I ended up doing during my magic apocalypse campaign was just making a few powers or stats, and then just throwing whatever at the party, until I felt they had reached a satisfying level of tension, then letting them kill whatever.

Of course, this is now working to my detriment, as for once I'm GMing a d20 Modern game, and my players aren't really well equipped most of the time (being college students). So when I sent a pack of dogs led by a small demon after them, they bolted when I thought they could have taken it.

As for imaginative, why not remove the dogs from the equation by using steak or hamburger as a distraction, if they have access to a kitchen knife? Or cats, if they can catch 'em - they could lead the dogs away as they fled!

Well, this makes me remember my very own first game ever. I was interested about playing a pen and paper game, after playing games like Eye of the Beholder on PC before, so my dad brought a 100% home-brew game he had created to play with his friends a long time ago (you almost cant find rulebooks here, and in his time it was plain impossible)

So my very first character started his solo adventure in a forest, and after exploring a bit I activated my first event. Now, what event happened depended on what you roll and a long event list that detailed each possible one. I rolled the "Den of Green Dragons" event...

I think there was an Equestria Daily history mention of the start of the comic a while back or something? Anyhow, as a sometime Darths & Droids reader, D&D novice but avid computer RPG and board gamer, and FiM fan, love your comic!

I'm going to have to bite the bullet on this one and announce my stupidity, but why are they running? If PM pulled the hydra from the original campaign which was for much lower level characters, shouldn't they beat this thing easily now?

The original campaign was supposed to take them from low level to paragon or near-epic levels (at which point they would challenge the god, Nightmare Moon.). The PM grabbed a random monster from the file, and AJ realizes that if the campaign spanned level 1 to level 20, the odds that the monster is something they can handle are not good.

The lowest level hydra in the books is for a party of five level 11 heroes...and they get worse from there. I used a level 14 razor hydra against my 4e party recently; they were level 14 and slightly broken in combat. I almost killed a PC every round, if it weren't for the intervention of our party's two healers I would have wound up killing the Warlock and the Barbarian. Luckily focus fire and crazy damage took it down quickly, but still those were three of the most dangerous rounds of combat in our parties history. And that includes the time with the Legion Devil 50 man army backed up by two War Devils, an Ice Devil, and a Cambion Cleric Boss.

So, this was my brother's first time playing an RPG. He had made a barbarian drow and we were sent to dispatch a murderous orc. We finally get to him and see that he doesn't look like someone we should be messing with out our low level. 8-9' tall, leather and plate armor, and this weapon that was basically two sledgehammers chained together with runes glowing on the heads. Our ranger takes a shot from the stairwell and it bounces off. Our dwarf tank tries to hit it and his axe bounces off. I cast a spell from the stairwell. It raises it's hammers and they start charging. We all know this will be bad. My brother takes the long way around the stairs and still gets across the room to reach the orc. He makes one mighty swing for the orc and triple crits. The blade cuts clean through the chains on its weapon and cleaves the orc clean in half. Brother's first boss ever is int-killed.

How is this story relevant? The boss's level did need to be altered, just pulled up instead of down.

My story comes from comes from a player perspective. I'm running a Medusa Monk (Different class name in system, but martial arts backed by "chi" is called that most of the time). To balance out that advantage the GM chucks at us an undead abomination thats immune to petrifaction and supernatural poisons.

The fight drags on, and I'm just about out of chi … than the half health transformation kicks in. To rub salt in the monster has damage soak higher than my martial arts base damage.

… We ended up allowing me to run my chi points negative just to be able to actually hurt the damn thing.